What is Core Banking Software (CBS)?

Introduction

Today, banks do more than just taking deposits and providing loans. They offer a wide range of services and products, and their activities are termed Core Banking, which is managed by a centralized platform that enables customers to do transactions from any branch. CORE stands for "Centralized Online Real-time Exchange," which allows a bank’s branches to access programs from centralized data centers. Besides retail customers, core banking also addresses the needs of corporate clients to deliver a complete banking system.

With a CBS, banks can improve their operations to address industry consolidation and customer demands, eliminate mistakes due to multiple entries, easily launch new financial products and make changes to existing ones, seamlessly merge self-service operations and back office data, and more.

Features of Core Banking Software

Opening of new accounts in the bank

Processing and recording cash withdrawal and money deposits

Processing loans

Calculating loan interest

Payment clearance

Check clearance

Managing and calculating interest rate

Organizing customer info

Banking analytics

Help in creating new banking products

Maintaining and managing customer relationships

Customer on-boarding

Managing transactions

Processing payments (RTGS, NEFT, mandates, checks, cash etc.)

Disbursing and managing loans

Managing accounts

Establishing criteria for number of allowed withdrawals, interest rates, minimum balances, and so on

Benefits of Core Banking Software

Instant Access to Analytics

Most CBS solutions present business analytics features which help to glean actionable insights from the valuable data captured by the back-end platforms.  Top CBS applications offer real-time as well as customized data on any dimension which assists the bank to remedy obvious concerns immediately. This also enables banks to collect data about a specific business process and analyze its long-term effect on the business. Thus, CBS software has made banking smarter and more transparent.

Reduce IT Maintenance

Modern CBS programs help to consolidate multiple stand-alone systems and lower the costs of maintaining legacy platforms. Banks can decrease IT maintenance expenses by shifting to shared services systems, which also enhance the back-end efficiency of their branches. CBS tools are very secure, which helps to minimize the risk of data loss and theft, which in turn decreases the chances of legal fines.

Lower Support and Operational Costs

CBS solutions empower banks to efficiently manage the volume of customers. Online banking decreases the number of customer visits to bank branches each day. This helps banks to significantly cut down support, operational, and infrastructure expenses. Payment gateways, mobile and internet banking, and ATMs have decreased manual processing of financial transactions in banks – and this has boosted efficiency while minimizing support and operational costs. Operational effectiveness is also improved by speedier time-to-market for new products and swifter reconciliation, settlement, and clearing.

Enhance Staff Efficiency

CBS applications help to make the banking process streamlined, efficient, and lean. They enable the frontline employees to easily manage the customer database, and simplify reporting and general ledger. Plus, they partially or fully automate tasks like telebanking. The software programs’ communication features facilitate faster and seamless information exchange between employees in different bank branches across the globe. CBS platforms also assist banks to effectively utilize limited manpower resources. Plus, by automating transactional processes, they considerably lower the risk of manual errors.

Boost Customer Loyalty

With CBS software, banks can deliver excellent customer services. Customers can manage their bank accounts and financial transactions from any place in the world, at any time. Banks can provide a transparent banking experience and easier transactions which helps them to retain existing customers, attract new ones, and build closer and more profitable customer relationships. CBS platforms empower banks to launch customer-centric financial services and products, and eliminate sluggish, complex, and conventional manual banking procedures.